Shitsumon Questions
by Sakura-Hime-179
Summary: When the Trickster God is captured after the Manhattan Incident, he is kept on the Heli-carrier for some time. S.H.I.E.L.D hopes to get answers from him, as such they send their best to speak to him. Nikaido Tsuki, codename Ember is sent. What happens... isn't supposed to.


"Really? Seriously, Fury?" Ember asked incredulously, slamming her head down on the table. "I have to go talk to him?"

"Yeah, now get your ass down there," he replied, not in the mood for an argument. She picked up on this, huffing angrily and walking down there. She stopped long enough to pick up her book, then stalked angrily down to the Confinement Chamber, plunking herself in the chair and flipping her book open.

It was quiet then, the only sound the occasional flip of a page and the clack Loki's shoes made on the metal floor.

"Can you quit that?" Ember asked.

"Quit what?"

"The pacing. It's driving me nuts."

"Then provide me some form of entertainment."

"I can get you a book. That's about it."

"I do not mean a book, mortal," he replied, stopping to look at her. He took in her bright red hair, her irritated seafoam eyes. Ever the trickster, he figured she would be more entertainment than any books.

"Okay, great. Sorry then," she said dryly in response, flipping another page in her novel. "Not sure what else you need."

"You could speak to me. I'm sure your... organization has sent you down here to uncover all my secrets."

"Eh. Not much to really uncover," Ember remarked blandly. "I'm psychic, y'see. So they send me down here to pick through your fucked up little head and find out all your dirty little secrets. But I'm putting it off, cause it's nice and quiet down here and I want to know what happens in this book."

Stunned silent, Loki began to laugh, leaning against the glass of the Chamber. "Honestly? You expect me to believe that?"

"You're the God of Lies. Shouldn't you know if I'm lying or not?" she asked in return, looking up for the briefest of seconds. Her seafoam eyes were bright and attentive, intelligence shining through them.

A smirk growing on his lips, Loki offered no answer, merely spreading his arms out to either side. "You cannot put it off forever, mortal. You may as well ask."

"And you may as well know my name's Ember," she replied, putting her feet up on the railings.

"Ember. Quit wasting time," Fury said in her communicator. "Get your answers, now."

The red haired girl sighed, pulling the small black communicator from her ear and tossing it over the railing. Settling into her chair, she returned to reading.

It was quiet for about ten seconds. Ember looked up from her book upon hearing Loki's laughter, rolling her eyes.

"I can't see what's funny in this situation," she remarked dryly. "You should probably calm down. Y'know. Before you suffocate."

Her words fell on deaf ears as the God continued to laugh. She allowed him his humor for about a minute before whipping her book at the thick glass of the Chamber. It didn't make a dent, or a scratch, it just startled him.

She stood up, picked her book back up, walked back to her seat, and resumed her position. All while he glared sullenly at her.

"Oh, act your age," she retorted to his glare. "Anyway. I really should do my job... You gonna talk or not?"

"What do you think, Ember?" he asked, enjoying saying her name. He felt it gave him power.

"Okay... Great. Then I'm going back up, I guess. I need someone to fish that back up," she said, gesturing to her communicator, almost talking to herself. "Ja mata," she said to Loki, standing up and walking back up.

The God sighed, sitting down on the small bed in the Chamber and muttering, "That girl... She is interesting, to say the very least."

Lying down, he fell asleep easily, dreaming of nothing.

Ember was in much the same predicament. After sending an agent down to go get her communicator and specifically instructing him not to tell Fury, she had retired to her room. It was a mess, as always. She was a weapons developer, a modder, and a hacker. Her room was never going to be clean. Flopping down stomach first onto her bed, she groaned into the pillow.

"He confuses me," she muttered in a muffled voice. She let her eyes shut.

_'Go to sleep Ember. Nothing's going to happen,' _she told herself as the familiar worries that kept her from sleeping surged up. Tiredness swirled around her mind and in less than a minute, she was asleep.

Approximately six hours later, she bolted up in a cold sweat, her breath shaky and hitching in her throat.

"H-Hiroshima... Kazoku..." she said in broken Japanese, her mind unable to form full sentences. Wiping violently at her eyes and drawing a blanket around her, she fled from her nightmares, down to the Detention Level. It was where she went to think and she had forgotten, in the terror of her dreams, of who resided there currently.

Sinking down against the door, She buried her head in her knees, her shoulders shaking as she cried. She was quiet. She'd had years of practice. Her red hair caped her face, caped nearly everything to the floor.

Eyes fell onto the girl, the inquisitive eyes of a God. Deep in her misery, the girl didn't notice, nor did the God do anything to give any indication he knew she was there.

In fact, he pretended to be asleep, as she pulled herself together. She wiped her eyes, wiped the tear tracks away, and took a long breath. As she did so, flames ignited on the tips of her hair, lighting the darkened area nicely. Absently, she brushed her hair back, before her eyes chanced upon the God.

"Oh shit..." she hissed, looking down at her feet. Chancing another look up, and seeing his eyes shut and his breathing regular, she let out a sigh of relief as she put her head back on her knees.

She didn't buy that he was asleep, though. She had grown up the oldest sibling and she knew enough to know when people were faking sleep.

"How long," she began, "have you been awake?"

Quiet greeted her words and she waited.

"Long enough," the God finally said, his eyes still closed. "You sound quite hopeless."

"I'm a hopeless person," she replied quietly. She saw no harm in telling. Hell, everyone knew. Clint probably told him.

"Agent Barton mentioned that," Loki said, his voice just as quiet as hers.

"Did he? I'm not surprised, honestly."

"You feel guilty, don't you? It must be horrible, knowing that you killed all of your family. Your lover."

Ember was silent for quite some time, before saying, "They would have died eventually. They didn't burn."

"Ah. But they died alone. Afraid. Knowing that you had betrayed them."

"You think I don't know that?" she asked. Thinking her voice was to come out angry, shouting, she instead found that it was whispered, pained. "I know I killed them. Everyone of them. My friends... my neighbors... All of them. I see them, every damn night, Loki! I don't need you reminding me of it."

Noting the anger in her eyes, the anger that concealed pain, he fell quiet for a moment.

"I don't know," she finally said, "what you hoped to gain here. You... You knew you wouldn't win, didn't you?"

He said nothing.

"You did. Silence gives consent, they say," she continued. "So you came here, and for what?"

"Don't you know that answer?"

"If I knew I wouldn't ask. I don't make idle conversation."

"I came here to widen your minds," he hissed. "I came here to rule."

"And yet you had the full knowledge that you would lose."

"I had no such thing. Now silence yourself."

She raised an eyebrow, her red hair still sparking faintly. Speaking no more, she only looked at him, faintly annoyed. "Mortal."

"I've got a name," she shot back, coldly.

"Ember then, if you prefer. How are you so... powerful? You just... ooze it."

Ember sighed, rubbing her eyes, idly. She brushed her hair back with one hand, leaning back against the wall. "It's a long story."


End file.
